Warm things rise up in me.
I smile.
I touch my hands to my face, I feel my cheeks, and it is a smile.
I guess it"s probably the strangest smile in the world, but it goes on and on and on, and I am shaking my head and smiling and I can"t stop.
And she looks at me and something rustles there, a slip of a grin, and I reach for it.
I actually reach my hand out for it, her flushed face under my fingers.
"Evie," I say. I say, "Evie."
Mrs. Verver picks her up even though Evie is nearly as tall as she is. She lifts her and starts carrying her, and that"s when I see Mr. Verver running up to us.
I stop and cover my eyes.
I don"t know why, but I can"t watch.
When I look again, Mr. Verver is twenty yards ahead of me and he has her now, he has Evie in his arms like when she was six and Dusty shoved too hard and knocked her from the top of the jungle gym.
He carries her and I follow far behind and Mrs. Verver is jogging alongside, trying to keep up. She is reaching out, scrabbling at his arm, touching her fingers to that strange blond hair.
I follow them back down the street and I stand on the sidewalk out front.
Dusty is on the front porch, her face hidden behind that whorling hair of hers.
I watch it happen.
I watch Evie"s wobbling blond head, the pale legs dangling like shorn twigs. I watch Dusty stumble back and Mr. Verver push past her, push past everything, carrying Evie like a bride over a threshold.
I watch them all disappear into the dark of their front hallway.
I watch Dusty whip around and, face red and ruined, shut the front door behind them.
I think I stand there for a very long time, waiting for my heart to slow down, waiting for my breath to come back. Waiting for something else, but that thing never comes.
"I"ll take you to the hospital in a few hours," my mother says. "They need some time."
We are standing on the front porch, my feet dew-damp.
The sleeplessness so light on me, I feel more awake than ever, and the mistiness of early dawn is just right.
"Okay," I say, but I don"t intend to wait. I intend to hop on my bike and pedal the three miles as soon as she goes upstairs and turns on the shower.
"Lizzie," she says, and I can feel her hand fasten on my shoulder. "Ia" Her voice goes soft and wilting. "I guess I didn"t believe it would happen."
I brush my foot back and forth on the concrete, feeling the delicious burn, bringing me to life.
"I guess, deep down, I thought she was never coming back," my mother says, and she curls her arm across my shoulders and presses into me.
"I know you did," I say. Why should I admit that I ever thought so too?
"I guess," she starts, her words falling strangely, like she is still half asleep, like she is saying things she"d never say out loud, "I guess it always seemed like something like this might happen to them. The Ververs."
"What do you mean?" I say roughly.
"I don"t know," she says. "There"s always just been something about thema" There"s almost a blush on her, like she"s been caught without her clothes. She can"t quite look at me.
"I don"t know," she says. "Like something had to break. It could only go on for so long, before something had to break."
"That doesn"t make any sense at all," I say, shaking off a flinch deep inside. "You"re not making any sense at all."
My legs pump as fast as they can. The bike ride to the hospital is a breathless blur, my lungs choked and pained.
I keep conjuring the silvery sight of blonded Evie, eyes startled and knowing.
Was it her, even?
Was it Evie who returned?
Or did I dream it all, conjure it from wishes and longing?
The weird, unwholesome emptiness of the damp streets and the metal smell of early morning, it all conspires to make me feel forgotten, swabbed off the world.
Part of me thinks, as I walk through the sliding doors of the hospital, that no one will even recognize me. That I will move through the halls, past every Verver, as though invisible, a slippery shadow.
But it is only seconds before Mr. Verver, begrimed and fumbling with forms and a clambering Dusty, hands in her hair, spots me.
His face is filled with such light, it nearly blinds me.
The heavy stubble, ribbons of dirt across his pant legs, the look of heat and flush on him, none of it matters, he shrugs it all off.
He is restored.
We have restored him, I think, and then wonder at the "we." It"s me, me, me.
"There"s Lizzie," he is saying, clipboard now against his chest, across his heart, like a knightly shield, and Dusty whips her head around to me, and the look on her face, like all her looks, is unreadable.
Thoughts flit through my head about everything she must feel, but I don"t have time for them. I don"t have time.
I am rushing for Mr. Verver, who outstretches his arms, who tows me in for a half hug, his right hand still clasping the clipboard, which bangs against my head.
"Oh, Lizzie," he says. "Lizzie, she"s here. She"s here and she"s okay."
I think that"s what he says, I don"t know. The next few minutes jumble together and he"s telling me things and saying that Mrs. Verver won"t leave Evie"s side and they"re doing some exams but everything is good, that Evie is strong and that Evie is well.
"She"s fine," Dusty pipes up. "She"s great and everything"s over. It"s all done. She"s back, and it"s over."
She says it briskly, as Dusty says most things to me, to her mother, to everyone but Mr. Verver.
But it seems off, and all I can think of are the things she told me, the things Dusty knows, or thinks she does.
Oh, Lizzie, she knew. She knew he was coming for her.
Mr. Verver puts down the clipboard, his pen, all his things, and rests his hands on Dusty"s shoulders.
He lets his fingers wiggle in her hair.
She looks up at him, waiting. I can feel her toes curling in her shoes, waiting for that gift, any gift, the gifts he hands out so freely.
Oh, I can see it on her. She"s thinking, Now maybe it will go back, now it will be as before.
The way she stands there, that open expression she gives only to hima"suddenly I feel like I should turn away. I feel like I"ve seen something no one"s supposed to see.
She waits for him, bouncing in her shoes, but this is what he gives her: "Maybe you should go home," he says.
All the lovely expectation on her face disappears.
He glances over at me for a second, and she sees it.
A baton pa.s.sed, from her to me, even as she hadn"t meant to pa.s.s it. Even as she still felt it in her tight, clawed hands.
She looks at me with those hawk eyes, and I feel, in a flash, like she can see right through my clothes, my skin, my everything.
She sees right into the center of me. I can"t unravel it all now, but it"s like she sees things in me, in him, that I can"t even see yet.
"I"m going back to Nana"s," she murmurs, her hand reaching for her bag.
"Dus"," he says, furrowed brow, his fingers resting on her neck.
"Don"t," she says, so hard, jumping back, her arm flipping up as if to fend him off, as if they were out on the field and he"d high-sticked her.
She picks up the clipboard. For a crazy second, I think she"s going to throw it.
He steps forward.
"Don"t, don"t, don"t," she says, her head whipping back and forth.
Stunned, Mr. Verver raises his hands high, like in a stickup.
"I don"t want to see her," Dusty says. "I don"t want to be here. I can"t be here."
She shoves the clipboard into my hands, reels around, and in an instant she is gone.
Mr. Verver is shaking his head. He is shaking his head, and looking at me.
My fingers fumbling on the clipboard, I don"t know what to say.
He swivels around on his foot, looking up at the ceiling. Then he says, "Until these last few weeks, she never wanted to spend more than an hour there, in her life."
It takes me a second to realize he"s talking about the grandparents. It seems funny to me that he"s thinking about where she wants to go and not everything else she just showed him. The things she showed.
"She can"t stand the rose perfume," he says, "and the vacuum cleaner going all day long."
I nod.
"But I guess all this, it"s just too much," he says. "It"s a lot to take."
He keeps looking at me.
He seems overwhelmed, by everything. I want to rescue him from it.
Detective Thernstrom and Mr. Verver are talking in the corner. The police are all around and everything seems to be crackling.
I wonder who will tell me what happened. How did she get back? Where did she come from? Where"s Mr. Shaw? And I have even silly, furtive thoughts that now they"ll uncover my lies, all of them.
Somehow I can"t bring myself to ask Mr. Verver, who has shaken off everything with Dusty. Shaken it off so easily. Everything popping and sparking, his face is like an amus.e.m.e.nt park, all filled with fear and elation.
"She can"t talk to anyone right now," Mr. Verver says, as soon as the detective leaves. "She"s all drugged up. But she"s great. She"s great. Oh, Lizzie, you should see her."
I did see her, I want to say. I saw everything.
"The policea"theya," I try.
"They haven"t been able to figure everything out yet," he says. "He"s on the run again. You sawa"he"d dyed her hair."
We both let that thought hover between us for a second. I feel it teeter in my rib cage.
"He was in for the long haul," he adds quickly. "From what we can figure out, shea got away from him. A waitress at the doughnut shop out on Falls Road said she saw a girl get out of a car and walk into the woods. So she must have gotten away somehow and walked home. Four miles."
My head is jumbled with questions. It all seems strange and impossible.
"And they don"t know where he is?"
"No," he says, so quickly, his face clouding over. "Not yet." He pauses. "But she came home, Lizzie. She made it home. She fought her way home."
The words sound big and movielike and I want to burrow myself under them. But it doesn"t feel right. None of it feels right. And none of it feels over, at all.
Nineteen.